Obama in Chicago: The failure of gun control here is why we need it everywhere

When a liberal policy fails - and of course they always do - liberals don't step back and examine the policy, observing objectively, "Well, that didn't work. It must not have been a good idea." You've seen this routine many times before. Spending that money didn't solve the problem? Well then we didn't spend enough! Raising taxes didn't work out the way they hoped? They need to raise them even more! A liberal idea only fails in the mind of a liberal to the extent that it must not have been taken far enough. So is it a tricky proposition for President Obama to push for gun control during an appearance in Chicago, knowing full well that Chicago already has the strictest gun control laws in the country and also has out-of-control gun crime? Not at all! He simply applies the principle that the only remedy for failed liberalism is more of the liberalism that failed:

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But the effort collapsed in the face of opposition from gun-rights groups, such as the National Rifle Association, and Republicans in Congress who are united in the view that new gun laws would violate Americans' Second Amendment rights. Obama is now weighing executive actions to impose new background check requirements on certain gun sellers. GOP lawmakers point out gun violence continues to plague Chicago despite having some of the strictest gun laws in the country. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday the Windy City is a "good illustration" of why there needs to be a uniform approach to gun control. "It’s too easy for those with bad intentions to just cross the city line or cross the county line to go and make a handgun purchase that they’re prevented from making in some other jurisdictions," he said. "Chicago ends up being a pretty good illustration for why those kinds of national laws are important to the safety of communities all across the country."

So let me see if I have this straight: All those gun crimes in Chicago are being committed by people streaming in from Rosemont and Oak Brook, or from Hammond and Gary, or from Milwaukee, or perhaps all the way up from Springfield. They're bringing their legally obtained guns to Chicago and killing the law-abiding Chicagoans who wouldn't dream of illegally obtaining guns, because that's against the law.

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And this is why we need a gun control law just like the one in Chicago for the entire country. Because then, you see, there would be no more guns. By the way, really think through the logic of this statement. The only way it works is if the law you pass bans handguns altogether. Otherwise, what do you accomplish just by imposing "common sense restrictions." You'll still have hundreds of millions of guns in circulation, and there's no way you can argue that by imposing the same gun laws everywhere, you've eliminated the possibility of someone bringing a gun from one city into another and committing a crime. This is actually an excellent illustration of the folly of gun control. It's not working in Chicago because there are too many ways to get around it, and there's no way you can eliminate all of those ways without violating the constitutional rights of the innocent. So the obvious answer is to let go of the obsessive notion that you stop crime by banning guns, and look to more effective and constitutional ways to do it. Then again, if your objective is to score cheap political points and expand the power of the federal leviathan, you don't care that the idea doesn't work. The idea itself is the objective, and that's why no matter how badly it fails, your every argument will always be for expanding it.

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